


The Tell Tale Heart

by ElectraRhodes



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Edgar Allen Poe, Love, M/M, Memories, Murder Husbands, Post TWOTL, Remembrance, Valentine's Day, canon compliant for season 4, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 04:02:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9699665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectraRhodes/pseuds/ElectraRhodes
Summary: Hannibal is both taunted and haunted by a message from the past and the present. Valentine's Day Post TWOTL events.Some dark humour, just maybe.For whom does your heart now beat?





	

Every year on St Valentine's Day Hannibal Lecter gets a single billet-doux in the post. It's always the same. A postcard stuck to a piece of thick paper so that it will stand like any normal greetings card. It's of Harry Clarke's illustration of Poe's 'A Tell Tale Heart'. Inside only a short phrase 'for whom does your heart now beat?'

He received the first one that year in Baltimore. Initially he wondered if it was the local Poe society endeavouring to drum up business. He re-read the story. Possibly a marketing exercise. Probably.

The following year it was less clear who would have sent it. Not Alana, surely, too macabre for her? And Will, who just possibly might, was in prison and far from such card stock. Probably.

The third year it arrived he was in Paris. Where no one knew him to be. Except for Bedelia. And surely it wasn't her style? Probably.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth years the card arrived, he was resident in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Initially Alana Bloom thought it some hidden code. He assured her it had no such meaning, as far as he knew. At least. Probably.

The seventh year the card arrived Hannibal felt distinctly unnerved by it. They were in Cuba. No one knew they were here. He wondered faintly about Freddie Lounds. It might be her sense of humour. Possibly? Probably.

The eighth year the card arrived, they were in Japan. Hannibal felt itchy for weeks before hand wondering if the card would find him here, so far from anyone who had ever known them. Could it be Chiyoh? Probably.

The ninth year the card was slightly delayed. They were moving around, in theory because they were evading some Verger-Bloom agent, but truthfully? because Hannibal wanted to avoid it. He had breathed a sigh of relief when it failed to materialise on St Valentine's Day. But the next day he saw it at the bottom of their pile of post in the PO box they had rented in the city. He wanted to ask Will about it but he'd laugh. Probably.

The tenth year the card arrived a day early, and caught Hannibal out, making his heart stutter in his throat. Still the same message. 'For whom does your heart now beat?' For the last few years, most of the last ten years, the answer would have been Will. Even that first year. Probably.

But did an answer matter? For the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth years the cards followed them to southern France. He hadn't managed to keep them all, the ones he'd received in Baltimore were lost into the vast maw of the FBI and their evidence lockers. Probably.

He set the most recent eight down side by side. He looked at them wondering. He hadn't removed the cards from their backing. Maybe there was a message inside? He peeled them off one by one and turned them over. Each card had a single letter on it.

I N G D R L E C

He stared, trying to think of a word made of these eight letters. If it was an anagram, it was tricky. Maybe not in English. But using the Latin alphabet. For the next twelve months he often took the cards out and shuffled them around, to see if anything came loose.

The following year another card came. They were still in France. Hannibal had waited with some impatience and apprehension for it to arrive. When it did he took it apart almost immediately. "T". Not very helpful. He could do with another vowel. He started to consider cyphers. He bought several classic editions of Poe's short stories and spent some time trying to crack the code. It must be a code? Surely? Probably?

In the sixteenth year they were on holiday in Italy, taking a chance on Venice. But still the card followed them. It made Hannibal apprehensive again. Someone always seemed to know where they were. "E". He mentioned it to Will, who smiled and suggested he might be overreacting, probably. 

In the seventeenth year, Hannibal found himself pacing up and down outside the house in France. Anxious. Unsettled. Disconcerted. He terrified the postal worker when he seized the post from his hands as he brought the various letters and junk mail to the door.

He peeled the backing off, "R", and put the cards picture down on the table and shuffled them around. Will came into the kitchen and saw him frowning with deep consternation at the table. Will smiled. He'd seen Hannibal get worked up over these cards each year for, what? 15 years? More? Probably.

The following year there was nothing. He'd been in a minor frenzy in the week running up to St Valentine's Day. When no card appeared he was beside himself. He repeatedly re-arranged the cards, to be sure the last few could spell out Lecter but what of the other words, if they were other words. He must be missing the first six letters. What though? Something important? With meaning? Probably.

For the nineteenth year there was another card. Hannibal had not expected one. Almost ripped the card from the backing, was genuinely shocked by what he found. On the back was a smiley face. :-) Nothing more. Utterly disconcerted he took everything to Will, virtually threw the cards onto the bench where Will was fixing something small and delicate.

Will looked at the cards and then looked up at Hannibal and smiled. He lay the cards out in the order they'd arrived

I N G D R L E C T E R :-)

Then he took a piece of paper and placed it on the table to the left of the cards. Using a big marker pen he drew six rectangles, no bigger than playing cards, on the paper. Left to right. For the six missing cards.

Then he added six letters

R E C K O N

Hannibal looked at the word, then at the rest of the letters. Then at Will. For once he was speechless. Will smiled and carried on with what he was doing. 

Definitely


End file.
